Affirmative action refers to activities or policies that seek to help groups that are often affected by discrimination obtain equal access to opportunities, particularly in areas such as employment and education.
The University of Michigan was sued several times by students who felt they were denied admittance because they were white, and the idea of eliminating measures that provided women, minorities, and others with preferential treatment gained momentum.
It was implemented by Hobart Taylor Jr. Lyndon Johnson, executive vice chairman of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity(PCEEO).
First, he held conferences with UM and Wayne State University to discuss the hiring of African American faculty members and their access to higher education.
He then realized he needed to create an ally with someone in the admission's office and luckily he did, with Roger Heyns, UM's vice president for Academic Affairs.
The purpose of OAP was to admit more African American students, however it was made open to whites as well to protect the university from resistance.
She went on to discuss that in the future (around 25 years) this racial affirmative action plan would not be necessary, but for the time being it would be helpful in promoting diversity in the law school.
The dissent argued that using race as a factor in admission decisions was in fact a way to promote a quota system and that it should be illegal now, not in 25 years to use racial affirmative action plans.
After this case, Justice O'Connor held that the compelling interest at hand lay in "obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
The admissions policy was ruled unconstitutional[4] on the basis of violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment,[5] Title VI,[6] and 42 U.S.C § 1981.
Similarly to many other schools across the country, University of Michigan faced the challenge that comes with favoring minorities whose credentials are below the average accomplishments of the majority of the campus.
From this struggle to find the most effective way to create diversity, the school has put in tremendous effort after the 2006 court ruling to ameliorate the issue.
Recent efforts in the past two years by the university specifically under the new administration of President Mark Schlissel have employed innovative solutions to tackle the issue of diversity on campus.
In 2015, the university received a strong push from the "Being Black at Michigan" movement to create a multicultural center that was more central to the campus and student life.
This is not the same as Trotter Multicultural Center, because we want a space solely dedicated to community organizing and social justice work specifically for people of color.
"[13] The United Coalition for Racial Justice (UCRJ) offered additional feedback to supplement the BSU's trending hashtag, #BBUM, regarding the University of Michigan's demographics conflict.
The group organized an expression of testimony, "Speak Out: 1,000 Strong for Racial Justice" which was attended by students, faculty, alumni and many others in support of the cause.
The U-M American Culture online site discussed the protest by highlighting the focus to be, "low underrepresented minority enrollment and poor racial climate for students of color at the University of Michigan.
While Provost Pollack's recent unveiling of new U-M diversity and inclusion initiatives represents an important step forward, we must continue to pursue student-led, direct civic engagement to hold the administration accountable.
To avoid repeating past mistakes, we must ensure that these new initiatives are executed transparently, with direct student participation at every phase: that the administration not only welcome our voices, but our presences at the decision table."